An Incommunicable Experience
by Ressick
Summary: We have shared the incommunicable experience of war... Harry and Luna talk, post-DH, EWE.


Written for the hp_tarot challenge on LJ, a couple of years ago.

Card: Three of Wands

Card Interpretation: in the Robin Wood deck, the man wears a cape decorated with a gryphon. She says she put that there, "to show the strength, majesty, and fearlessness of a lion paired with the grace, speed, intelligence, and new dimensions of an eagle. Combined like this, they can reach new spiritual heights, and new dimensions of nobility. The gryphon is flying through a ring, which symbolizes eternity and the endless circle of life. This encompasses him, and he is free within it."

Author Notes: Many thanks to Chance for the beta.

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><p>He had explained everything to Ron and Hermione, and then he let them tell the others a day later, after they'd all eaten and slept and bandaged their wounds. He had sat, silent, in the Headmaster's office, the office of Dumbledore and Snape, while Hermione told of Horcruxes and Hallows and Snape and his mother, to the Order, and Kingsley the new Minister, and the Hogwarts staff, as well as Ginny, Luna, and Neville, as heads of the DA. Now it was all over, and now it was important that the full truth be told, to those who needed to know what they had truly fought for, what all the dead had given their lives for.<p>

After Hermione had finished the story, with help from Ron, the entire room, crowded as it was, sat silent. McGonagall had risen, then, and led what ended up being a procession to the Shrieking Shack, where she had levitated Severus Snape's body back to the castle, and put him in the makeshift morgue, with the others who had fallen in defense of Hogwarts. Two days later, after a special announcement to the public at large regarding his role in the war, Snape had been laid to rest next to Dumbledore in the castle cemetery.

That was where Harry stood, three days after the battle, in front of Snape's shining marble tomb, the early morning light shining down. He still didn't know what to think of this man, who had hated his father, seemingly despised him, yet who had done everything, saved them all, really, for the sake of his friendship with Lily Evans.

He heard someone approach, a soft singing, and turned. Luna skipped up, a carefully woven wreath of ivy, white tulips, and lilies in her hand. She stopped next to him, smiled, and placed the wreath in front of Snape's tomb. "Ivy is thought to symbolize friendship and affection. White tulips are for forgiveness. And lilies for your mother, Harry. I think Professor Snape would appreciate them, even though he never seemed like a man who liked flowers. They certainly would never grow in his classroom, unless they were a Guatemalan Darkness Brodiaea." She turned to him, a smile on her face. "Now that Mister Shacklebolt is Minister, do you think he'd let me see the Heliopaths?"

"I don't know," Harry replied, a smile creasing his face for the first time in days, "You'll have to ask him." A thought crossed his mind, "Luna, have you heard from your father since... since everything? Is he alright?"

A frown seemed to flit across her face for a moment before she replied, "Yes, I sent him an owl after he was released from Azkaban. I was not pleased to hear about how he treated you, Harry, and I have had time to think since we were all at Shell Cottage together. Ronald was rather upset, in fact, when telling me of what happened at my house, and while Hermione was not exactly happy, you could say, she seemed to understand why he did what he did. I can't say that I do." She turned towards the castle, her eyes unfocused, "Daddy has always known he might be a target. People don't like to hear the truth, for some reason. And after my fourth year, we talked about how my activities against the Ministry would likely make me a target as well. He knew how I felt about that, Harry. He knew what I wanted him to do if something happened. He knew that I considered your safety, your ability to defeat Voldemort to be more important than anything else. I am rather disappointed in him."

Harry had never heard Luna say anything against her father, and was rather gobsmacked. He stood next to her uncomfortably, realizing that she had long valued his safety above her own, and not knowing how to react to that. "I'm sorry."

"Yes, well, Daddy was a Hufflepuff, you see. I thought he understood about loyalty to one's friends," Luna smiled at him sadly. "I suppose he put his loyalty to me above my own wishes. But I can't say I would have done the same. If Hermione hadn't thought so quickly, we certainly wouldn't be standing here now, would we?"

He laughed, "If Hermione hadn't thought so quickly, I wouldn't have survived my first year at Hogwarts."

Luna smiled broadly. "Friends are truly a wonderful thing, are they not?"

Thinking of the ceiling in Luna's room, the five portraits, he nodded, "Yes, they are." He glanced around at the rising sun, an idea forming in his mind. "In fact, Hermione and Ron and I are setting off for a bit, later this week, after the rest of the funerals. We have to go fetch her parents, from Australia. Would you like to join us? We'll get Neville and Ginny too, and we can all catch up. I still haven't heard much about how you three were running the DA."

She bounced a little, and clapped her hands, "Yes, that would be wonderful, Harry! I have always wanted to see if the Griggly-Armed Kangaroo really has survived in the Australian Outback. After Hermione's series on the War is finished, it will be something never before published in the Quibbler!"

"Hermione's... series on the War?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes, I have asked her to write a series on what really happened over the past couple of years. She's been talking with Headmistress McGonagall and Minister Shacklebolt about what is appropriate to release to the public, and then she will write it. She says she'll likely turn the articles into a book, later on. To combat the lies of Rita Skeeter and the Prophet." Luna turned to Harry, a shadow in her protuberant eyes, "The truth often is not easy to hear, but it will set you free."

Australia was beautiful. Harry had seen pictures in schoolbooks back in Surrey, and a television program or two, but neither compared to the real thing. Standing on their suite's balcony in a small Wizarding hotel, he looked out over the rest of the city towards the ocean. Gulls were crying overhead, the last tendrils of sunlight shadowing the buildings around them. Gripping the rail, he breathed in deeply. They were close enough to the waterfront to smell the salt in the air, and it was nothing like an English coast. The suite, though well-appointed, was crowded. After almost a year in a tent with just Ron and Hermione, even the other three friends with them seemed a bit loud.

Glancing back inside, he could see Ron and Ginny playing chess while Hermione and Neville spoke quietly. Hermione, after all the action had subsided, was plagued with nightmares about her torture at Malfoy Manor. She'd gone off to a Muggle library near Grimmauld Place and diagnosed herself with Post Traumatic Stress. Neville, also familiar with the pain of the Cruciatus, as well as Ginny and Luna, had started to talk with her about it. No Muggle psychiatrist would believe them, and there were no available Wizarding equivalents, so they healed themselves and each other instead.

Harry had almost laughed, a little, to keep from crying, when she'd returned from the library with a sheaf of scribbled notes. After all they'd been through, of course there were mental scars. He'd had nightmares for years, and the only thing that had ever worked for him was time. Even that didn't seem to be working very well lately.

Turning back to the sunset in front of him, he could hear Luna moving around in the small suite's kitchenette, fixing tea. The movements stopped, and he could hear her soft steps come closer. She nudged him with her elbow and he looked over, taking the mug of tea she offered. "We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top," she said in a slightly sing-song voice. When he stared at her, she smiled, "An American Muggle named Oliver Wendell Holmes said that, about his country's civil war in the nineteenth century. I found it in a book in the Ottery St Catchpole public library years ago." She looked out over the twilight-lit streets. "We all have scars, don't you think, Harry? Yours and Neville's are rather more visible to the naked eye, but we all carry them."

He nodded; even with Madam Pomfrey's attentions, Neville's face had not fully healed. The two boys the prophecy had spoken of so many years ago now both wore scars given to them because of Tom Riddle. Neville had grinned, saying at least he didn't have to survive two Kedavras to get his scars, and Harry had smiled. He knew Neville had paid almost as high a price for the scars as Harry himself had. And without a prophecy to tell him it was needed, Neville had still stood firm against the Dark, and for that Harry thought Neville, and indeed all his friends, were braver than he would ever be.

Luna looked over at her friend. _Her friend!_ Part of her still couldn't believe that she was no longer alone, that she was in fact on a different continent with five _friends_. That was why she had painted their portraits on her bedroom ceiling, to remind herself of her bond with them. To remind her of the bonds forged when six teenagers had flown to London to save Stubby Boardman. But she was with them now, and she could see how weary Harry was. A year on the run, a deadly battle, the loss of friends and mentors yet again – the boy, no, young man, was prime material for a Wrackspurt infestation, not to mention a serious bout of melancholy.

She studied her tea for a moment. Luna had never done well in Divination, not that many Ravenclaws took the class at all, but she hadn't been able to see the same shapes as Professor Trelawney, and so had not earned very good marks. Her housemates had not been pleased, but at least that which she had seen, in her tea leaves for example, usually came to pass. The tea was hot, and her fingers burned, even through the thick mug. Sipping it, she glanced back at Harry. He was lost in thought, brow furrowed.

Luna reached out her hand, still warm from the mug of tea, and patted Harry's shoulder. His muscles were tense where she touched him, and she sighed softly. From Ginny, she knew that he had never had friends before Hogwarts, like herself, and Neville, and Hermione had similarly been alone, set apart from their peers. Even seven years later, that old habit of keeping everything to himself was hard to break.

"Harry," she said gently, "when you started the D.A., it was almost like I had friends, and then suddenly I really did have friends. I had you, and everyone else in the room behind us. And I knew I could talk to them, and they would be there for me. It was hard to believe that at first, but I knew, even after months in that cellar with Mister Ollivander, that someday all of you would come for me. You need to believe, Harry, that we're here for you." She smiled down at him, as he looked up with tears in his eyes. Patting him gently on the shoulder once more, she slipped back into the hotel room.

The Boy Who Lived Again watched the sun finish setting, and then went back inside. He had friends, and tomorrow, they would get back Hermione's parents. So many had been lost, but those two Muggle dentists could be found again.

End.


End file.
